If you’re looking to boost your brand awareness or tap into a new audience, you’ve likely looked into brand collaborations.
Across social media, partnerships between brands and influencers are continuing to see great success. From driving audience growth to boosting brand trust, it’s not hard to see why these partnerships are a coveted strategy.
But how do you form a strategic partnership that is mutually beneficial for both sides? And once formed, how do you ensure it’s successful?
This helpful guide will cover everything you need to know about building a brand partnerships strategy on social media and top tips to ensure your next brand collaboration is a successful one. Let’s dive in!
What is a brand collaboration?
A brand collaboration refers to a partnership between two or more businesses. On social media, this can take the form of two companies working together or a business partnering with an influencer.
Mutually beneficial, these collaborations can be used to create a memorable experience, launch a new product or service, or achieve a shared goal or outcome.
The key to successful brand collaborations is understanding that they aren’t simply transactional agreements. Rather, a brand partnership is one in which both parties want to achieve mutual success (from follower growth to a boost in engagement to an uptick in sales).
A brand collaboration can take the form of a joint campaign, giveaway contest, or influencer-led marketing campaign.
Consider the launch of Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 6, which saw Samsung partner with fitness influencer Amanda Bisk. By tapping into her engaged audience of fitness enthusiasts, Samsung increased the visibility of its smartwatch amongst an audience that will likely be its intended customers – those who lead active lifestyles, value exercise, and want to better optimize their health.
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Why should you develop a brand partnership strategy?
Whether you’re looking to launch a new campaign, hold a giveaway contest, or simply co-host an online experiential event, developing a brand partnership strategy can see you achieve great success.
Still not convinced? Here are three reasons why you should explore brand collaborations:
• Boost the exposure of your brand while tapping into new markets: By developing a brand partnership on social media that sees you work with another brand or creator, you’ll reach a wider audience and increase the exposure of your brand. You can reach fresh eyes, new demographics, and boost your reach and introduce more people to your brand.
• Organically increase engagement: Purpose-built collaboration features (like Instagram Collab) allow you to instantly connect with another brand or creator’s audience. This instantly doubles the reach and potential engagement of your post, without spending a cent on ads!
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- Example: . Take the collaborative post between chef Tom Walton and Brancourts Dairy as an example. Using the latter’s cottage cheese product, Walton created and filmed a recipe as an Instagram Reel, showing audiences ways to use Brancourts dairy in everyday cooking. Despite Brancourts Dairy having just 1,440 followers, this collaborative post received 318 comments, 24,000 shares and has been watched 1.3 million times.
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• Leverage the credibility of a more established business: Collaborating with a reputable business or collaborator in your industry or field allows you to build credibility and trust amongst a new audience. Consumers will transfer the trust they have in your collaborator to your brand, making a brand partnership incredibly valuable.
How to establish successful brand collaborations: 5 top tips
Tip 1. Set clear goals and objectives for the collaboration
For any campaign to be successful, it needs to have clearly defined objectives and targets. Be sure to set clear goals ahead of embarking on your collaboration, as this can help steer your choice of collaborator and ensure you both share the same vision.
Goals may include increasing your reach, followers, or engagement. If you’re looking to increase sales, ensure the campaign is one that has a clear call to action to drive customers from your social media page to your products or online website. These objectives need to be in place as they will help steer the direction of your brand collaboration.
Tip 2. Collaborate with brands and influencers relevant to your industry or niche
The most important part of any successful brand collaboration is selecting the right partners.
Ultimately, you need to conduct research and take the time to ensure your collaborator is the right fit for your brand or product. As well as being relevant to your niche or industry, it’s important to choose a partner who shares your values, reflects the ethos of your brand, and has a shared vision for the outcome of the collaboration.
Take True Protein as an example. The Australian-owned natural supplements brand makes it a priority to collaborate with Australian athletes, recently partnering with Olympian Genevieve Gregson, who reflects their ethos of clean-eating and hard work.
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Tip 3. Develop clear guidelines for your collaboration
Open and transparent communication between both parties is key to collaboration success.
Consider the key messages you want to communicate in each post; if you’re looking to drive sales, is there a strong call to action that will direct audiences to your product? If you’re looking for increased engagement, is the content informative, educational, or entertaining?
Guidelines should also apply to the content itself. Are there visual parameters you want to put into place? Is someone going to review and approve content before it goes live and if so, do they have the resources to manage this responsibility? If cross-promoting content, will you use a specific hashtag or look to use Instagram’s collaborative post feature?
Tip 4. Get creative with executing your partnership
The beauty of a brand collaboration is that it opens the door and invites creativity. Consider using the collaboration as an opportunity to try new methods of execution. This could look like a joint giveaway, a co-created resource or product, an online competition, a virtual event, or social media takeovers across your respective platforms.
Consider the collaboration between swimwear label Frankies Bikinis and Pamela Anderson as they launched a new capsule collection. As one of the main pieces is the iconic red swimsuit Anderson made famous in Baywatch, it made for a powerful campaign and co-created product launch.
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Tip 5. Review and share your results
It’s essential to measure the results of your campaign. Not only will these figures be used to see if you met the objectives, but they can also be used in the future when pitching campaigns or products to other businesses and influencers for collaboration.
Be sure to review the stats and necessary KPIs throughout the collaboration so you can adjust your strategy should you need to. Once the collaboration is finished, review the analytics and ensure that if working with influencers, they also share their results and insights with you. These can then be analyzed to see what worked well and what can be improved for future collaborations, guiding your next strategy for brand partnerships.
Plann’s Analytics feature is great for this, as it identifies top-performing content and provides you with a deep insight into all the metrics behind your posts.
Four successful brand collaboration examples to inspire your next partnership
You need only scroll through Instagram to see that brand partnerships are a proven way to spark organic growth on social media. Take these four successful brand collaborations as inspiration:
Levi’s x Crocs
When one thinks of Levi’s, the mind tends to conjure images of blue denim and crisp jackets. The casual shoe that is Crocs doesn’t exactly spring to mind. That’s exactly what made this unique collaboration such a powerful one, as it was unexpected and brought two distinctly separate audiences together for a co-created fashionable product launch.
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Hoka x Renee and Tim from ThruHikers
As a footwear brand loved by runners and outdoor enthusiasts, the collaboration between Hoka and ThruHikers was a strategic one. With Renee and Tim being incredibly well-respected and trusted experts in the field of outdoor adventure and hiking, they brought credibility to the launch of Hoka’s apparel line and were able to share this with their audience. The creative Reel showing ThruHikers putting the apparel to the test in the outdoors was so successful it generated more than 25,000 views.
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Sydney Sweeney x Laneige
The collaboration between Sydney Sweeney and Laneige is a strategic one, as Sydney’s audience is largely made up of women. Across her social media, she’s frequently asked about her skincare routine, and in this collaboration, she takes audiences through her routine as she features the Laneige products. Having generated more than 62,000 video plays, the accompanying caption for the post has a strong call to action as it directs viewers to shop the products at the link.
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Nimble Activewear x Ashleigh Laura
As an activewear brand, Nimble’s credibility rests on seeing the clothes hold up well during exercise and movement. In collaboration with pilates instructor Ashleigh Laura, the company presented its audiences with a mini-workout while shining a spotlight on how the clothes performed with each movement. The partnership is a strategic one that speaks to the importance of conducting research and ensuring the values of both parties align with one another.
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Forming strategic partnerships with brands and influencers has the potential to grow your brand significantly. While you won’t see success overnight, with creative execution and clear objectives, you’ll be able to expand your reach, increase engagement, and potentially even drive sales.
It might seem like a challenge to establish these partnerships in an increasingly competitive field, but pooling resources will guarantee mutual benefits for both parties. With the above examples as inspiration and this guide to help you along the way, you’ll be sure to find success with your next brand collaboration.
Ready to plan ahead and maximize the success of your brand collaborations on social media? Go on, and redeem your 7-day free trial of Plann Plus. If you don’t like it, keep using Plann for free!
